Also known as painful intercourse syndrome, vulvodynia is an often-oversimplified diagnosis for a very complicated and debilitating syndrome. Pudendal neuralgia is inflammation of the pudendal nerve. This condition causes burning or stabbing pain in the genitals, urethra or anus. The pain often gets worse over the course of a day and is exacerbated by sitting. Both conditions make sex incredibly painful.
Sex should not cause you persistent pain. It can get better. You’re not alone.

January 8, 2008

Wait, Now I Don't Have Vulvodynia?

My senior year of college I found an “expert” vulvodynia. After poking around for a remarkably short time, she informed me that I didn’t have vulvodynia; I had vulvar vistubulitis, a condition where your vagina is in constant spasm. She told me that was why I had the most unbearable pain with penetration. She said I wasn’t a candidate for surgery or medication, but she told me I would need to undergo physical therapy.

I went home and cried after that appointment. I couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than having to work my vaginal muscles on the fingers of a stranger. That’s incredible private. It’s one thing to lie back, space out and have a pelvic exam, but it’s another thing to be working with the medical professional who has her hand in you.

I didn’t want to do it. I felt completely hopeless. I wanted it to be something straightforward. I know this sounds terrible, but I wanted it to be cancer. Cancer you can treat, cancer you can remove. In my mind, there was nothing I could ever do to make this go away.